Patty Adair

Patty Adair is the Director of the Risk Management Group at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). In this role, she is responsible for the agency’s risk management program, which includes five program areas – chemical, fire and combustion, children’s, electrical, and mechanical.

Patty joined the CPSC staff in 2004 as a Textile Technologist. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Clothing, Textiles and Related Arts from Virginia Tech, and a Master of Science in Textile Engineering from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science (now Philadelphia University).

From 1998-2003, Ms. Adair was on the staff of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI). While with ATMI she was involved with various national and international standard-setting and regulatory activities. Before joining ATMI, she worked on a variety of regulatory issues, including fiber and textile flammability and workplace health and safety, in the Washington office of the National Cotton Council.

From 1988-1991 she served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana.

Len Allison

Business ManagerEngineered Materials Systems, Inc.

Len Allison has over 30 years’ experience in Printed Electronics design, fabrication and materials, including a 10 year assignment in Asia. Len is Business Manager – Printed Electronics for Engineered Materials Systems, a division of Nagase Corp. Education - BSME from Michigan State University.

Len serves on the Printed Electronics and Membrane Switch committee of SGIA, and participates in ASTM and IPC standards development.

After receiving an MA in Constructed Textiles and the Paul Reilly scholarship for research from the Royal College of Art in 2008, Angold moved to Japan to design concept cars for Toyota. It was upon returning to London that she took up her residency at the Design Museum, creating lighting installations for public exhibition that went on to inspire her globally stocked fashion jewellery lines. As well as being a favourite among celebrity stylists and a regular at London and Paris Fashion Weeks, Sarah Angold Studio is the go to UK consultancy for creative problem solving. From show-stopping fashion merchandising schemes to wearable tech innovation, Angold’s rapidly expanding list of premium clients includes Tate, Panasonic, Topshop, Grayson Perry, Selfridges, V&A, Seymour Powell, Hussein Chalayan, WGSN, Swarovski and Avery Dennison.

As a global leader in her field, Angold is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of cross-disciplinary design entrepreneurs and bridging the ‘language gap’ between fashion and technology. Her international education programme ‘Collaborative Culture’, this year in partnership with Cartier, links industry with the world’s most creative talent at top universities including London College of Fashion and the University of North Carolina. As well as mentoring five London fashion entrepreneurs, Angold is a seasoned speaker at international trend conferences including Premiere Vision Paris, Decoded New York and Creative Futures London.

Jacob Babcock

CEO and co-founderNuCurrent

Jacob Babcock is the CEO and co-founder of NuCurrent, an industry leader in wireless power systems and technology development. Babcock has been a pioneer in the new wave of wireless power integration and holds over twelve patents in wireless power transfer and magnetics. Under his leadership, NuCurrent has established itself as a technology, IP and design leader in magnetics for wireless power transfer and wireless charging. Prior to NuCurrent, Babcock was Legal Counsel North America for cleverbridge, and a technology and transactions attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP. He was also a teacher with Teach for America. Babcock has a JD from Northwestern University School of Law and a BA from Indiana University. ​

Bill Babe

Sales & Marketing ManagerLiquid X

Bill possesses over 7 years of successful technical sales and marketing experience. In his current role at Liquid X, Bill is responsible for product development oversight, strategic partnerships and market analysis. Prior to joining Liquid X, Bill ran the day to day operations for a regional distributor of water treatment products for the municipal water and wastewater industry. Bill has also acted as Marketing Manager/Technical Recruiter for a national engineering services firm with over 350 employees. In this role, Bill managed a multi-faceted marketing program to develop and refresh the marketing strategy; business intelligence tools; promotional materials; and public website. Bill received a B.A. in Psychology from Allegheny College. He completed a one year, full time program at Duquesne University and received an MBA with a focus on Sustainability

Anuja Bagul

Senior Material ScientistMaterial ConneXion

Anuja G. Bagul is a Senior Material Scientist, New Technologies at Material ConneXion. In this role, Anuja has spearheaded research into new materials and technologies including e-skins, soft robotics, smart haptics, wearables, e-textiles, printed and structural electronics, composites, and bioengineered materials including synthetic spider silks. In addition, Anuja works with cross-functional teams to ideate and implement new material strategies and enhance technology portfolios.

Anuja holds a Masters Degree from Cornell University in Materials Science and Engineering, focusing on functionalized nanoparticles for enhanced oil recovery systems, and a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pune University, where she served as Team Leader of the Soleca-Solar Car project in her undergraduate program.

Anuja’s prior experience includes being the youngest person ever to work in the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) in Pune, India. There, she was a part of the team that developed a new technique for the extracellular synthesis of gold nanoparticles using biological means. Additionally, Anuja worked with a leading industrial design firm in India called Design Directions, proposing alternate materials, production processes and innovative designs for a variety of projects. She is a frequent speaker on various topics relating to materials, and served as an assistant editor for Material Innovation: Packaging Design, published by Thames & Hudson.

Aldjia Begriche

Vice President of Smart TextilesOMsignal

Aldjia Begriche spent nearly 10 years at the most important Canadian textile research center, the CTT Group in Ste-Hyacinthe. While at CTT Group, Adljia launched the Smart Textile Research Group where she developed a prototyping infrastructure and supervised a multidisciplinary team of textile and electronic engineers. During that period, Aldjia filed five patents. In 2014, she joined OMsignal, the leader in bio-sensing garments as Smart Textile Director where she led the transition from prototypes to production of smart apparel. In 2015, she ran the production of the Polo Tech Shirt in partnership with Ralph Lauren.

As Vice President of Smart Textiles at OMsignal, Aldjia leads a team of data scientists, material engineers and textile designers. She overlooks the apparel development from design to production. She has also developed a full collection of Smart Garments and is an inventor and holds several patents.

Aldjia graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Industries Textiles in 2006, the most important textile engineer school in Europe. Aldjia also acted as the President of the Institute of Textile Science for a non-profit organization that promotes collaboration between academia and industry in research.

Olivia Burca

Garment EngineerWearable X

Olivia Burca is the garment engineer at Wearable X. She oversees product and development where she leads garment engineering efforts in collaboration with teams across the US, Australia, and Sri Lanka. Born in Canada, Olivia received her BFA in fashion design in New York at Parsons the New School of Design. During her studies, she fell in love with researching innovative sustainable materials and discovering how technology can enhance textiles and improve people’s lives. Olivia was awarded grand prizes at multiple competitions and fashion hackathons and collaborated with Intel on a fashion project with Parsons incorporating their Curie chip. Olivia has had the opportunity to work under some of the most forward thinking fashion design companies such as The Row, Mary Katrantzou, and Yeezy X Addidas. She spent a year in London studying textile design, pattern making, shoe construction, and tailoring in London at Central Saint Martins.

Stacey Burr

As VP, General Manager of adidas Digital Sport, Stacey Burr leads the creation, development and operations of miCoach® wearable sports electronics, digital sport and app experiences. Their aim is to build a deeper connection to consumers through sports coaching and fitness services, which ultimately lead to positive fitness behavior change.

Stacey is a leader in the field of wearable sensing technology. Following a career at DuPont, she founded and served as CEO of Textronics Inc, a pioneer in electro-textiles. Textronics led the commercialization of e-textiles with the first wearable sensor garments for fitness and health. In late 2008 she successfully sold the Company to adidas.

Her team at adidas subsequently developed and launched the miCoach® Elite athlete monitoring system in 2013. Major League Soccer, in the United States, adopted the miCoach Elite system across the entire league, making MLS the first professional Smart League.

Ms. Burr has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and an M.B.A, with a marketing and operations emphasis, from Purdue University. She is the co-inventor of 16 patented materials and process technology innovations in wearable electronics. Stacey chairs the Smart Fabrics and the Wear Tech UX annual conferences. In addition to her position with adidas, she also stays active in the fashion tech and consumer health venture start-up communities.

Ben Cooper

Managing DirectorIoClothes

Ben is a passionate product and business developer driven by the need to find practical solutions to real world problems. He is currently Managing Director of IoClothes, a strategy and project management services company helping bridge the gap between apparel, footwear and textile companies and technology companies. Previously, Ben was a founding member of VF Corporation's Global Innovation Center. He led the product research and testing initiatives for Timberland, Vans and The North Face innovation, and VF’s wearable tech exploratory group. Before that, Ben co-founded the "smart" infant monitoring start-up, Sensible Baby, which gained international recognition for its innovative approach to disrupting the juvenile products space. Prior to that, he was the Lead Footwear Project Engineer for the US Army and successfully led fast-paced multi-million dollar development efforts for the United States Department of Defense

Michael Corbett

General ManagerWEEL Technologies

Michael has been working in the design and manufacturing of Wearable Electronics for the past 14 years. First as President of FITRIGHT Industrial and now as Co-Founder and General Manager of WEEL Technologies, Michael and his team in Taiwan, The Philippines and China have become leaders in the design and manufacturing of Wearable Electronics products for the Outdoor, Sports and Health/Fitness markets.

Michael graduated from Wichita State University with two BA degrees and was awarded a MA degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He currently splits his time between his home in Greensboro, North Carolina and the WEEL factory in Shenzhen, China.

Felecia Davis

Assistant ProfessorStuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University

Felecia Davis is an Assistant Professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and is the director of SOFTLAB@PSU. She has a PhD from the Design and Computation Group in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. She received her Master of Architecture from Princeton University, and her Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Tufts University. Felecia's work develops computational textiles or textiles that respond to commands through computer programming, electronics and sensors for use in architecture, interiors and soft objects. The work of SOFTLAB@PSU is featured in a PBS/NPR broadcast feature titled Women in Science.

She is also principal in her own design firm FELECIA DAVIS STUDIO where has received several finalist awards for her architectural designs in open and invited design competitions. Felecia has lectured, taught workshops, published and exhibited her work in textiles, computation and architecture internationally, including the Swedish School of Textiles, Microsoft Research, and MIT's Media Lab.

Candice Decaire

PartnerKilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP

Candice Decaire practices intellectual property law, with expertise in patent and trade secret protection. Ms. Decaire has counseled and represented clients in litigation, appeals, arbitration, ITC investigations, and inter partes review proceedings concerning diverse technologies such as computer hardware and software, biologics, pharmaceuticals, carpet, thermal imaging/night vision equipment, "bullet proof" armor, industrial bearings, aircraft equipment, and medical devices. Ms. Decaire also advises clients about strategies for protecting and profiting from intellectual property and data, with particular focus on the Internet of Things and wearable tech, including assessment and mitigation of risks of infringement or misappropriation, and data privacy and security issues. Ms. Decaire helps biotech and other clients with IP and licensing policies, strategies, and agreements, including as to due diligence and investigation of validity and freedom to operate.

Paul Dillinger

Vice President of Global Product InnovationLevi Strauss & Co.

Paul Dillinger is the Vice President of Global Product Innovation at LS&Co. Following his passion for sustainability, Dillinger has been an integral partner with the company’s Social and Environmental Sustainability group to develop front-end methods for applied sustainability in the design process. Dillinger also led the design team that created the Dockers® Wellthread collection, a result of a fellowship with the Aspen Institute. He is the first fashion designer to earn a First Movers Fellowship with the renowned organization.

Before joining LS&Co., Dillinger worked as a fashion designer and brand development specialist for 16 years at a variety of fashion houses in New York, including Calvin Klein and DKNY. He has held faculty appointments at California College of the Arts and Washington University in St. Louis, and has also served as a designer-in-residence at the Rhode Island School of Design through a program sponsored by Levi Strauss & Co.

Dillinger received his BFA in fashion design from Washington University in St. Louis. After graduation, he moved to Milan as the first Fulbright Scholar in field of fashion design, researching the influence of emerging luxury markets on high-fashion design direction and commercialization strategies. Concurrent with this research, he earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Domus Academy in 1995.

Genevieve Dion

Associate ProfessorDrexel University

With her extensive background in bespoke clothing and industrial design, Genevieve Dion’s design work is in the permanent collections of the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her research focuses on the investigation of flexible production methods and mass customization of textiles for the development of seamlessly integrated knitted electronics into "Textile and Garment Devices". In 2012, she launched the Shima Seiki Haute Tech Lab at ExCITE to conduct transdisciplinary research on functional fabrics. Dion was named Fast Company's Top 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2014 for her creative approach toward the design and fabrication of functional fabrics. She now directs the Center for Functional Fabrics at Drexel University and works closely with the newly founded Advance Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) Manufacturing Institute located in Cambridge, MA. In 2018, the Pennsylvania Fabric Discovery Center will open at Drexel under Dion’s direction in coordination with AFFOA. Her research receives funding from the NSF, NIH and Keck Futures.

Yariv Erad

CEOHisep Technology

Yariv Erad, CEO: 14 years of experience in leading business development projects in various technological fields (medical, clean-tech) as well as wide venture-capital and M&A hands-on experience. Mr. Erad is holds an LL.B. degree and is admitted to the Israeli Bar since 1999.

Todd Harple

Todd is an Experience Engineer at Intel where he has worked since 2005. Todd has conducted global ethnographic and design research and presently he leads strategic innovation research and pathfinding activities within Intel’s New Devices Group. Prior to joining Intel, Todd worked in diverse settings including financial services and natural resource industries as well as in museums, community development and education. Todd earned a Master’s degree in Historical Administration and Museum studies from the University of Kansas in 1995 and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from The Australian National University in 2001.

Sylvia Heisel

Creative DirectorHeisel

Named as one of the "25 Forward Thinkers Defining the Future of Fashion", Sylvia Heisel is a designer and creative director working with new materials, manufacturing and physical computing for fashion and
wearables.

An expert in 3D printing, functional fashion, and design for smart wearables she is currently developing a work-flow and manufacturing system for 3D printed apparel.

Paula Hunter

Executive DirectorNFC Forum

Paula Hunter manages the day-to-day affairs of the NFC Forum under the direction of the Chairman, Officers, and Board of Directors with responsibility for strategic planning and direction, membership development, budgeting, evangelism for the Forum and its mission, and outreach to liaison and vertical market partners. She has almost two decades of executive technology association management experience beginning in 1999 when, while working for Compaq, she was a founding board member for the ASP Industry Consortium. Ms. Hunter has served as Executive Director of the NFC Forum since 2013. Her experience also includes key roles in several technology companies, ranging from small start-ups to large multi-national corporations. https://nfc-forum.org/

Chris Jorgensen

Chris Jorgensen is Director Technology Transfer with IPC—Association Connecting Electronics Industries, a worldwide trade association for the electronics interconnect industry. As a member of IPC’s technical department, Chris’s primary responsibility is staff liaison to standards development committees. These committees are responsible for standards such as those for e-textiles and printed electronics.

Chris is secretary of the United States Technical Advisory Group – TAG – of the International Electrical Commission’s Technical Committee 91 Electronics Assembly Technology and is a participating member of its technical working groups. He is also a member of the US TAG for IEC TC 119 Printed Electronics and is a participating member of its working groups.

Chris also represents IPC as a member of NextFlex–America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute for which he is a colead of its Standards, Reliability and Test Technical Working Group.

Chris has nearly 20 years of experience in standards development, nonprofit management and marketing. He received his degree in communications from Columbia College in Chicago

Sanjay Kumar

PrincipalVerizon Professional Services

Sanjay Kumar is a Managing Principal with Verizon Professional Services with several years of experience in technology strategy, architecture and customer experience with the big four consulting firms and technology companies. His area of focus covers co-creation, ideation, design thinking, technology identification, prototyping and systems integration. In his role he brings the Verizon Innovation ecosystem to clients enabling them to create new products and services that help prove the potential, prove the concept and eventually prove the market.. He works with cross functional teams to facilitate open collaboration, blue-sky thinking that removes barriers for technology adoption that brings new ways to sense, transport, analyze, and share insights. Sanjay has a broad set of industry, outsourcing and consulting services experience including manufacturing, automotive, retail, financial services and hi-tech. Sanjay holds an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from Michigan State University. He is active is local entrepreneurial organizations and has held advisory board positions with the Eli Broad College of Business.

Valérie Lamontagne

Creative Core (Owner and Designer)synapseWear

Valérie Lamontagne is a wearables designer, curator, and researcher. She holds a PhD in “Performative Wearables: Bodies, Fashion and Technology” from Concordia University, Montréal (2017) where she is Adjunct Professor in Design and Computation Arts. She is the owner & designer at 3lectromode, a wearables electronics atelier dedicated to avant-garde crafting and consulting in fashionable technologies and is the founder and director of the Fashiontech Festival in Montréal. She has exhibited and lectured internationally on wearables and fashiontech at conferences such as: HCII; CAA; ISEA; ISWC; CES; DIS; as well as collaborated on notable exhibitions and events related to fashion innovation and media arts such as: ”The Future of Fashion is Now" at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2014); "TechnoSensual" at MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria (2012). Recently she launched, in collaboration with Art and Program, Inc. (Tokyo) a wearable device for environmental sensing called “synapseWear.” She is also a mentor for the “Textile Reflexes” project as part go the WEAR Sustain, Horizon 2020 European Union funding for Research & Innovation project.

Chris Lane

CEO3dMD

With more than 40 years of experience in the IT industry, Lane has held senior technical and chief executive positions in globally-recognized high-tech and services companies, as well as serving as a board member for both privately and publicly held companies in the US and Europe. Following an early career in software engineering and as a consultant with a U.K. government agency focused on the promotion of IT, Lane joined Oracle, the world’s largest business-to-business software company. During his six years with the company, he held VP positions in Europe and the U.S., including head of Consulting Operations. Lane then joined the IT team at EM Warburg, Pincus & Co., one of the world’s leading venture capital investors. In 1994, Lane was appointed as CEO and president of TSW International, which he shaped to be the acknowledged market leader and visionary company in the Enterprise Asset Management market. Just prior to joining 3dMD, Lane held the position of COO at ECSoft, a European IT services provider.

Lane co-founded 3dMD in 2000 with the goal of establishing a highly-reliable, non-invasive 3D technology platform for efficiently imaging people in 3D to a level of anatomical shape precision required to fuel growth in applications such as medical, biometrics, human factors, high-end fit apparel, and anthropometrics. For the past 17 years, Lane has personally spearheaded an R&D strategy that has resulted in 3dMD becoming the benchmark supplier of high-precision 3D and temporal-3D(4D) surface image capture solutions. To maintain the company’s global benchmark status, Lane is actively involved with spearheading industry initiatives and 3dMD customer community to better understand real-world requirements and ever-changing environments.

Dan Ledger

FounderPath Collaborative

Dan Ledger is founder and principal at Path Collaborative, an advisory and research firm working at the broader intersection of wearable technology, connected health, IoT and machine intelligence. Path Collaborative is a network of industry experts who help OEMs and service providers in the wearable technology space with product strategy, partnerships, go-to-market planning, and technology differentiation.

Prior to forming Path Collaborative, Dan was a principal at Endeavour Partners where he led a great deal of work and research on wearable technology. He has advised numerous startups, larger service providers, and OEMs on product definition, service design, ecosystem strategy, and go- to-market planning within this space. Dan has appeared on NPR, Bloomberg and CNN talking about the future of wearable technology. His research in wearable technology has been covered by GigaOm, The Guardian, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, TechRepublic, and CBS. Dan has multiple engineering degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and a Masters degree from MIT.

Tom Martin

Tom Martin is a professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he is the co-director of the Virginia Tech E-textiles Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

His current research includes electronic textiles, location-based applications, and interdisciplinary design teams for pervasive computing. Martin is vice-chair of the IEEE Technical Committee for Wearable Information Systems and has published more than 50 refereed technical articles. In 2006 he was invited to the White House to receive the NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his research in e-textile-based wearable computing.

Hadrien Michaud

CEOFeeltronix

Hadrien Michaud received an engineering degree from École Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France) and an MsC in microengineering from EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), both in 2013. He then joined the laboratory of Prof Stéphanie Lacour at EPFL and obtained his PhD in 2017 for his work on stretchable metallization technologies for skin-like wearable transducers. He is a founding member of Feeltronix.

Jordan Monroe

Co-founderOwlet Baby Care

Jordan Monroe is a co-founder at Owlet Baby Care, where he leads new product development. He was recognized in 2017 on the Forbes' 30 Under 30 List, and has received many accolades and honors in the innovation, tech and entrepreneurship realms. He has been interviewed by top national media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, FOX News and TechCrunch. He holds a bachelor's degree in business, marketing and entrepreneurship from Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management. He hails from Southern Idaho and is the father to two young children.

Despina Papadopoulos

FounderPrincipled Design

Despina Papadopoulos is the founder of Principled Design / Studio 5050, a systems design and strategy studio specializing in wearable technologies, building prototypes, and working with organizations to introduce innovation at the intersection of social structure and technological possibility. She works closely with both technology and apparel companies on the integration of electronics and helps them identify opportunities to disrupt the supply chain.

A leader in the wearable technology and e-textiles world, Despina developed her first “wearable” in 1995 as part of her MA thesis project at NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program. Since then she has developed a wide range of wearable technology projects and solutions, including mBracelet for NCR (which presaged e-payments), fabrickit (an open source modular system that facilitates the construction of wearable projects).She also developed click sneaks, love&hug jackets, and day-for-night (an homage to Paco Rabanne).

Despina is a professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and founding faculty at SVA’s MFA in Design for Social Innovation Program. Despina has lectured internationally on the relationship between design, technology and ethics, including at CHI, Tate Modern, Smart Fabrics, the Jan Van Eyck Academy and the Ivrea Interaction Design Institute. Her work has been featured in publications around the world and exhibited in major museum shows, including the V&A in London, the Holon Design Museum in Holon, Israel, the Walker Art Center in Minnesota.

Dr. Amanda J. Parkes

Chief of Technology and ResearchFuture Tech Labs

Dr. Amanda Parkes is a fashion technologist with over 10 years of experience in wearable technology, interaction design, and fashion innovation. She is the Chief of Technology and Research at Manufacture NY, a hybrid fashion incubator/factory/research facility in Brooklyn NY where she is leading the development of a high tech fashion & textiles R&D space with joint research around advanced digital fabrication, wearable electronics, and material science, She is currently a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab and an adjunct professor in the Columbia University Department of Architecture. She received a PhD & M.S. in Tangible Media from the MIT Media Lab and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Product Design) and a B.A. in Art History from Stanford University. She is an international speaker & lecturer including TED, DLD, PSFK, WEF and the New York Times International Luxury Conference and her design work has been awarded in forums including the ID Magazine Annual Design Review, the Prix Ars Electronica, and the D&AD Awards. She was named to the 2014 Business of Fashion 500 People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry. Outside the lab she likes to sew, surf and amass exquisite shoes.

Dr. Ivan Poupyrev

Technical Program LeadGoogle ATAP

Dr. Ivan Poupyrev is an award-winning scientist, inventor and designer working at the cutting edge of interaction design and technologies blending the digital and physical realities. Ivan is currently a Technical Program Lead at the Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division where he directs efforts focused on interaction technologies and design for future digital lifestyle. Prior to Google he was Principal Research Scientist at the Walt Disney Imagineering research division and at Sony Corporate Research laboratories in Tokyo before that. He also did stints at the University of Washington as a visiting scientist, while working on his dissertation at Hiroshima University, Japan and at Princeton University School of Architecture as a Visiting Lecturer.

Ivan's research focuses on inventing new technologies and interaction paradigms that seamlessly blend digital and physical interactivity in devices, everyday objects, and living environments on a very large scale. It span a broad range of topics including virtual and augmented reality, haptics, sensing and actuators, interactive biological matter, energy harvesting, 3D printing and additive manufacturing and much more.

The results of his work were presented at major international scientific conferences, such as ACM SIGGRAPH, CHI and UIST to name a few and were broadly reported in international media including BBC, CNN, Fast Company, Wired, New York Times, New Scientist, Financial Times, The Washington Post, NIKKEI, Forbes, Time, MIT Technology review and many others. His research and design was released on the market in a variety of products worldwide and recognized with numerous awards including Nokia Ubimedia Award, an Honorable Mention at ARS Prix Electronica and multiple award for his research papers at top international scientific conferences. His work was nominated for National Design Award by Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Forrester Media featured him as one of the leading Digital Disruptors and Bloomberg Business Week run a profile about him as one of the Innovators of 2012. In 2013, Fast Company Magazine recognized him as one of the World’s 100 Most Creative People calling him “one of the best interaction designers in the world”.

Miguel Ridao

Co-Founder & Chief Executive OfficerSensing Tex

Mr. Ridao founded the company and became Chief Executive Officer in 2010. He served as the co-founder of three companies in the field of engineering and technology. Holding over seventeen years of experience in the business of textile and electronic technology, Mr. Ridao is an inventor, holds some patents, has lectured worldwide, published several articles, and has won several awards at both technology and business level. On top of Mr. Ridao's achievement of receiving many high degrees Pre-PhD (UPC, Barcelona Spain 2006); Master Physics (UB, Barcelona Spain 2003); Master Textile Engineering (FH Reutlingen Germany 1999); (UPC, Barcelona Spain 1998), he has acquired academic training completed specifically within the field of entrepreneurship, leadership, and management. This training was done at the business schools of IESE Business School (Learning to Grow Executive Program) and La Salle Business School (Start Up Catalonia Program)

Hasan Shahariar

ProfessorNorth Carolina State University

Hasan Shahariar has a PhD from North Carolina State University, where he pursued his degree with a major in Fiber and Polymer Science and minor in Electrical Engineering. He has received MS degree in Textile Engineering (concentration in Polymer Engineering) from the same university. His research interest is focused on development of functional materials and fabrication processes of printing devices for wireless communication and smart sensing applications. Hasan is a confounder of the startup spun-out from NC State University called “FuxionWear”, which is leveraging the automation process in manufacturing textile electronics. He has also worked at a previous nanotechnology-based start-up in process development and at a multibillion-dollar filter company on an internet of things application for sensing in gas filtration for his summer internship.

Julie Sylvester

ProducerLiving in Digital Times

Julie Sylvester, New York, NY --As the founding producer of the CES FitnessTech Summit, Julie has over the past six years become a torchbearer for the FitnessTech world. Establishing the summit as the industry was in its infancy, she has guided it as fitness technology has become pervasive in our everyday world. This year the FitnessTech Summit is twenty six times as large as the year it was introduced. Along the way, Julie has become a spearhead and conduit not only for the FitnessTech world, but now the emerging Wearable Tech industry as well which took its foothold in fitness. Asked to share her experience and insight from Wall Street seminars to various events and conferences around the country, Julie is proud to have stayed at the forefront of both the Fitness and Wearable Tech industries as they continue to exponentially evolve.

Prior to her involvement in the world of technology, Julie’s universe was theater. Many years an actress, then a theater company manager, finally she and her husband formed their own New York production company, Julie & Friends/Akiz Productions which produced not only theater but private and corporate events. It is with these skills that she has definitely made a smooth transition into the universe of tech. When she finds the time, Julie keeps her hand in theater, as a former board member of the League of Professional Theatre Women she continues to work with them in their pursuit of parity.

Davide Vigano

Co-Founder and CEOSensoria Inc

Davide Vigano is cofounder and CEO of Sensoria Inc. Sensoria designs, develops and produces bio-sensing wearable garments. The vision of the company is that the Garment itself will become the next ultra-personal, mobile computer.

Davide is a former Microsoft partner level executive with over 25 years of sales, marketing and extensive product management experience. As an intern he started the international localization group for MacWorks and MacOffice in 1987. More recently, he served as General Manager of the Health Solutions Group where he was in charge of marketing and product strategy for both HealthVault and the Amalga product line. He acted as Vice President of the Worldwide SMSP Medium Business division which he grew 18% YOY to over $14B.

Davide also managed the Italian Marketing, Business and Enterprise operations for five years and brought it to number one in the world for contribution margin, 6th largest Microsoft subsidiary in the world by revenues.

Clint Zeagler

Research Scientist IIGeorgia Tech

While teaching textiles and fashion design studio classes at Savannah College of Art & Design, Zeagler realized his true passion lies in bridging the gap between the disciplines of Wearable design (such as fashion) and Human Centered Computing. A diverse background in fashion (MA Fashion Domus Academy, Milan), industrial design and textiles (BS Industrial Design Georgia Tech, Minor in Textile Manufacturing Georgia Tech, Atlanta) drives his research on electronic textiles and on-body interfaces with the Contextual Computing Group of the GVU center of Georgia Tech. As a Research Scientist II for the Georgia Tech Interactive Media Technology Center and as an Instructor, he teaches courses on Wearable Product Design and Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing (MUC). Zeagler enjoys working with corporations such as HP/Palm, Google, and even the Atlanta Braves to bring real world experience into the classroom. His ongoing relationship with the NASA Georgia Space Grant Consortium to funds MUC student projects on wearable computing for space—a wonderful opportunity for undergraduate students. A deep understanding of the garment production process fosters innovation in his research. Zeagler’s company Pecan Pie Couture hand dyed, embroidered, and screen-printed textiles and garments. Building upon that skillset, his research led to the creation of the Electronic Textile Interface Swatch Book (ESwatchBook) in collaboration with Thad Starner. The ESwatchBook is designed to help facilitate discussions between the skill and craft-based design disciplines (.i.e. fashion) and more technical disciplines (.i.e. computer science). To put the ESwatchBook’s capabilities to the test, he developed a series of workshops at multiple colleges with the purpose of bringing together designers with engineers / technology specialists. The workshops were funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which he co-authored. Zeagler’s most recent endeavor FIDO: Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations is an exploration into using wearable electronics to enhance interactions between service dogs and their handler/owners. If you are interested in wearable technology be sure to download Zeagler’s e-book Meeting The Challenge: The Path Towards A Consumer Wearable Computer.